July 29, 2009

This July 26, the Young Communist League of Canada - la Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada, sends its greetings and stands in solidarity with the people of Cuba. This "Moncada Day" has special meaning for Cubans and friends of Cuba everywhere, as it is the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution. The movement that grew into the triumphant Revolution was born on the 26th of July, 1953 when Fidel and Raul Castro and around 160 other brave revolutionaries attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. This was the first armed resistance to the corrupt and brutal, US-backed, Batista regime, carried out by the "Movimiento 26 Julio".

The YCL-LJC Canada wishes to send a special greeting to the Youth of Cuba and to the Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas. We acknowledge the vanguard role the youth play in the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban people's struggle for socialism and against imperialism. This was no different 56 years ago when the attack on the Moncada barracks was carried out. The revolutionaries that participated were overwhelmingly young farmers, workers and students and in unity with the working-class. The average age was 26, the same age as their leader Fidel Castro. Today we salute the example set by those brave revolutionaries.

The Moncada attack was not an immediate victory for the Movimiento 26 Julio, but it was the first battle in a long people's struggle against the strangle-hold of imperialism. After Fidel was arrested and imprisoned, he published his famous defence speech entitled "History will Absolve Me". With 50 years of history written about the heroic Cuban Revolution, Castro and his Moncada comrades have been absolved one-thousand times over. By continuing to maintain friendly relations with Cuba, Canada affirms its sovereignty in foreign policy (which in all other areas is authored by Washington -- like Palestine, Colombia or Canada’s imperialist war in Afghanistan).

The bravery and heroism of their people continues, symbolized by the Cuba Five – five men unjustly imprisoned in US jails for fighting CIA-backed terrorism on their Island. We salute the Five, reaffirm our demand to free them, and cheer-on Cuba's achievements in education, health care and international solidarity which have shown the world that socialism is both possible and necessary to end war, environmental destruction and economic injustice.

The Young Communist League of Canada joins the friends of Cuba from around the world in saying:

July, the hot weather month is also a hot month for antiimperialist struggle. Around the world WFDY organizations started their summer plans including camps, festivals and youth events. In Cyprus EDON celebrated its festival with a new taste this time,especially after the winning of presidency last year. New challenges face the movement now after being in power, but till now it proves to be fruitful with AKEL and the left forces taking more than 35 % of the votes in the European elections, thus improving their share of votes, and this only happened to a single party in power, that party is AKEL.

In Africa, this month celebrated the birth of the symbol of the liberation struggle Nilson Mandela, and our organizations across the continent continue their struggle with the same spirit of struggle towards complete independence from imperialist implications after getting liberated of its direct occupation in the past century.

WFDY also visited Asia, participating in an international forum of All China Youth Federation in Beijing and meeting many officials of the organization. WFDY also visited Vietnam, DPRK Korea and Japan in a series of meetings with our member organizations in this important region in the world. We expect this visit to come out with important results in the near future and further strengthen the relations and the anti-imperialist struggle in the region.

In the Middle East, the political situation is always tense and delicate, but this month carried a shameful declaration of the Kingdom of Bahrain expressing the will to open the relations with the Zionist state of Israel.

This is a very bad move that neglects the right of the Palestinian people to have an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return of the refugees to their lands. Any compromise with Israel that doesn't include those rights of the Palestinian people is a betrayal that we condemn and refuse.

Elections in Lebanon was another form of political fraud, where the campaign of both coalitions, March8 and March

14, the pro-Syrian and pro-American groups did cost about 700 million dollars, almost the same amount of the campaign of the US elections knowing that Lebanon is 100 times less populated than US!! With huge funding from abroad, especially from Saudi Arabia, the March 14 coalition managed to get about 60,000 immigrants fully paid for travel and hotel for a full week to vote in the delicate and balanced regions and this led to their victory in the overall results. Lebanon will go again into 4 years of a pro-American government and a crippled “opposition” that only seeks compromises and shares in the government.

On the other hand, during the same month, the campaign to free Ahmad Saadat, General Secretary of PFLP detained in Israel, presented a statement in front of the UN General Secretary and asked the UN to take its responsibilities for the freedom of the Palestinian detainees. WFDY joined this campaign and issued a statement of solidarity earlier this month.

In Latin America, the movement against the illegal coup in Honduras is still rising and everyday there are more pressures on the military to quit and let the democratically elected leader to come back to power. WFDY continues its solidarity and close look for the situation and studies possible moves in solidarity with the Honduran people in the next months

Joint Statement of the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League

The Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League proudly salute LGBTQ workers and activists, Egale and other community advocates throughout Canada and in Quebec, safer queer-positive schools, and corporate-free space on Pride Day! We say: No Pride in the international criminalizing of sexual orientation, sexual expression and gender identity! No Pride in War or Corporate Plunder!

Pride events this summer are celebrating welcome progress towards greater equality and social justice. Communists are active players in Canada's various LGBTQ and queer* identified communities. Together we stand proudly in solidarity with all LGBTQ allies and activists marking Pride 2009.

Globally celebrations are marking the anniversary of the "Stonewall Riots" in Manhattan. A show of working class resistance, the first scuffles were reported to be initiated by local homeless and unemployed queer youth - patrons of the Stonewall Inn. 40 years on we are bombarded with both encouraging and alarming headlines:

* Many more queer-positive environments are available to us in the public realm. * Initial but promising signs on the left to re-integrate the fight for justice and the fight against homophobia. * Increasing numbers of trade unions now have active Pride and LGBTQ caucuses. * High schools are launching gay-straight alliances, safe school spaces and "Pride proms". * Sex-reassignment surgery is at least partially covered under some provincial health insurance plans.

These legal, political and cultural victories are the hard-won results of decades of efforts by the LGBTQ community and allies.

However,

* California has overturned the same-sex marriage ruling, despite equality gains in other states and in Canada. * The Harper Tories still hope to reverse queer rights if they win a majority government. * The Right continue to scapegoat the LGBTQ community and racialised groups, to divide working class resistance against finance capital, corporate bailouts and global environmental plunder. * The politics of Pride events are skewed by corporate sponsorship, and with a handful of notable exceptions, military opportunism And there's more. Despite Canada's welcoming image, * queer youth in Toronto and Montreal seeking asylum from persecution in other countries are being extradited. * HIV-positive men still face barriers to travel across the Canada-US border * LGBTQ secondary students, (over two-thirds in a recent survey) report feeling unsafe at school, (compared to 1 in 5 straight students). * Prosecutors are unwilling to prosecute vicious gay-bashings in Vancouver as hate crimes.

Globally,

* violent public expressions of homophobia are on the rise. * the struggle to end the decriminalization of sexual orientation and sexual expression faces stubborn resistance. * working class queer people suffer especially vicious discrimination, and as women and racialized communities bear the severe brunt of neoliberal economic and social policies. * ILGA, the association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersexed peoples reports that 90 United Nations member states still criminalize consensual same-sex acts among adults. * In seven countries, legal punishment for homosexuality still includes the death penalty. * In many countries, such laws drive women, men and youth underground to hide from fear of exposure and censure.

But important progress for LGBTQ equality is being achieved in countries such as Cuba, South Africa and Nicaragua. The myth that queer rights can only be won in wealthy capitalist countries is shattered by these advances, and by the reality that homophobic and racist concepts are exported from North America and Europe.

Despite the cultural and legal shift in favour of equality and diversity, homophobia and transphobia remain tenaciously powerful within the Canadian state. Behind his mask and 50s sweaters, Stephen Harper's anti-equality positions are clear. The Tory leader:

* voted against same-sex marriage. * has left his options open on abortion if he wins a majority. * snubbed the 2007 international AIDS conference in Toronto. * has appointed anti-choice, anti-gay judges to provincial courts. * includes "Focus on the Family" zealots among top Tory advisors. * pushes through regressive tax changes to promote the patriarchal family model. * has gutted Status of Women Canada and bars the use of government funding to promote equality. * criminalized youth by raising the age of consent to 16 and limited young people's access to condoms and abortions. * allows Canada Customs to seize literature ordered by bookstores which serve the LGBT community.

At a time when the so-called "war on terror" is used to remove civil liberties for racialized communities, we need to remind each other that "an injury to one is an injury to all." Just like racism, sexism, and national chauvinism, homophobia and transphobia are weapons to divide working people. Despite this effort, most Canadians support equality and human rights. These must now be expanded to include full legal and political protections for sexual orientation and expression, and gender identity.

This demand is a vital part of the wider movement to drive the Harper Tories out of power. Today the ruling class is using the economic meltdown to carry out a vicious assault on working class and unemployed queers and the entire labour movement. A cover as well to reverse hard-won social equality gains. A broad democratic and social resistance is going to be needed to block and reverse this corporate agenda. Together, we must build a powerful coalition around a genuine people's alternative to this crisis - a common front of Aboriginal peoples, youth and students, women, seniors, immigrant and racialized communities, environmentalists, labour, peace activists, the LGBTQ community, farmers, and many other allies.

Ultimately, this struggle in our communities and workplaces, and at the ballot box, will defeat the right and open the door to a people's coalition government. The goal of the Communist Party is to win fuller social freedom and genuine people's power in a socialist Canada, where our economy will be owned by all and democratically controlled. It will then become possible to eradicate the intersecting forms of exploitation and oppression which we face today, while defending our sovereignty and protecting our common environment.

(* a note on "queer": Queer is a term widely used by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, inter-sex, queer, questioning and two-spirited communities to describe the richly diverse community as a whole. The word unifies all the identities into one inclusive term. It was meant to "take back" an otherwise derogatory, and formerly spiteful word.)

The Communist Party of Quebec and the League of Communist Youth of Canada would like to extend their wishes of warm solidarity to the workers in Quebec on the occasion of their National Day.

This year, Quebecers will celebrate their national holiday in the context of the most serious economic crisis of global capitalism since the 1930s. The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development consisting of thirty richest countries on the planet) projects that by 2010, 57 million people will have lost their jobs in its member countries and that the crisis could deepen and endure a few more years. It is estimated that currently over one billion people worldwide are malnourished because of this crisis.

In Quebec tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs or have reduced employment. Entire regions have been devastated. The federal Harper Conservative government still refuses to make it more accessible Employment Insurance. Wages and working conditions of those who still have jobs are heavily attacked by greedy capitalists who seek to take advantage of this situation to increase their rate of profit. Young workers are a particular victim of these attacks undergoing historically higher unemployment and greater job insecurity.

The need to end the capitalist system which is responsible for this misfortune is becoming very clear. But at the same time, the nation question also arises in Quebec.

The people of Quebec are a nation whose rights have been denied since the conquest of New France by England in 1763, first by the British colonialists and later by the Canadian bourgeoisie.

The formal recognition last year of nationhood by the Harper Conservative government was only an election manoeuvre that did not settle anything. The Conservatives have also proven themselves in the fall of 2008 when they embarked on a campaign chauvinistic anti-Quebec in Canada to attack the coalition of opposition parties that threatened to topple them. The Canadian government still does not recognize the national rights of Quebec, including that of being a sovereign and independent state. In their eyes, Quebec should remain a province like the others.

Today, this denial of the right of Quebec to self-determination is the essence of national oppression Quebec has suffered. This national oppression raises the indignation of the people of Quebec; for 60 years the movement for independence or sovereignty has been led by the Québécoise bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie politically represented, mainly, by the Parti Québécois wants to lead all the people of Quebec behind it, to support the solution of the question that boils down to building a new state – capitalist and imperialist – they control and to continue, to its greatest benefit, most of the manifestations of oppression and exploitation suffered by the working class in Quebec.

The Communists considers that to embark on the fight of the bourgeoisie to make Quebec a separate country necessarily relegates to second place and leaves “on ice” the fight that truly interests of the working class, the struggle for socialism – a society directed by the working class for the benefit of the vast majority of working people.

The struggle for socialism requires that the working class, composed of various nationalities in Canada, united against the enemy, the capitalist class, Canadian, Quebec and abroad, for state power across the country. The independence of Quebec not only weakens the struggle for socialism, but could strengthen the dominance of U.S. imperialism on Quebec and the rest of Canada.

To promote this necessary unity that the Communists are active in the multinational working class in Canada offering a program of democratic and constitutional reforms that would guarantee full equality of all nations in Canada, including a new constitution based on an equal and voluntary union Quebec and English Canada, including the right to separate, and guaranteeing the national rights of Aborignal nations.

Long live the working class of Quebec! LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIALISM!

Communist Party of Quebec (section of the CPC-PCC) Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Quebec Young Communist Leauge of Canada - Central Executive

The Young Communist League of Canada - La Ligue de la Jeunesse communiste du Canada draws attention to World Environment Day, organized by the United Nations since 1972 and celebrated on June 5 in more than 100 countries. As the youth realize, there is now no doubt we are experiencing a grave ecological crisis characterized by climate change. In fifty years, the capitalist system has managed to load the air with gas emissions because of an economy dependent on oil, clear-cut forests, pollute almost all water systems with pesticides because of agro-industry, and transformer large territories into garbage dumps because of the wasteful market. Imperialist war has caused ecocide.

The first victims of the global ecological crisis are the poor, women, Indigenous peoples, and the labouring masses. The poor suffer more from this crisis because their livelihoods are linked more closely to local ecosystems. Women and indigenous peoples often live under very precarious conditions which makes them even more vulnerable.

Also for workers. According to a 2001 World Bank report "Among the direct effects (climate change) is the increase in diseases and deaths related to temperature. Waves of intense heat and long duration, associated with moisture, could raise the rates of morbidity and mortality, particularly among the urban poor and the elderly. Another direct effect is the increase in the number of deaths and injuries caused by extreme events such as floods, landslides or storms. In recent years, over 96% of deaths caused by disasters occurred in developing countries."

We reject the idea that "everyone is to blame also for the environmental crisis,” which obscures the class-essence of the problem. Canadian companies and their state are complicit in the destruction of the environment; ie., Canadian mining companies in Latin America. As Naomi Klein and others have documented, imperialism has transformed these ecological disasters into a source of profits.

The ecosystems now under threat are at the base of all economies. Capitalism has only one watchword: the maximum profit. Demanding the preservation of our environment, youth today combat the serious consequences of this rotten system. Increasing numbers of young people support "green jobs,” public transport, strict regulations against corporate pollution, nationalization of energy, and peace. But the capitalist system can not be reformed enough to integrate environmental sustainability into its production and administration. We need the democratic planning of society for the benefit of the people. This is a mass struggle requiring unity among those who fight for the environment and the working class, which leads inevitably to socialism!

The Harper Conservatives are at it again! Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Kent (who this weekend made news announcing that “time is not right” for the return of democratically elected Honduran President Zelaya who was ousted in a CIA-sponsored coup) has been continuing the Conservative Party’s campaign of screwing around in students politics.

Shame!

Emails secured through a recent Freedom of Information request revealed that Conservative MP Peter Kent, MPP Peter Shurman, and senior York University administrators were interfering in this year's general elections of the York Federation of Students (YFS). […] MP Peter Kent was later found to have assigned a key staff member to intervene in the election on behalf of a team of candidates.

** For discussion: 1. Why do you think the Conservative Party is trying to undermine student unions in this manner? Do you think they would win the support of students for their agenda in an open debate? 2. What kind of response is necessary by the youth and student movement to these blatant anti-democratic acts?

2. YCL IN ACTION

YCLers in Toronto recently marched in the Pride Parade, joining Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and No Pride In War, opposing the Canada Military trying to recruit through Pride. The club brought in friends and distributed hundreds of flyer with the joint YCL-CPC Pride statements.

3. YCL 2009 SUMMER CAMPS & SCHOOLS

The YCL-LJC is launching a series of political and ideological summer camps, retreats and schools discussing Marxism and youth activism in Canada and internationally today. Topics range from the fight for socialism to the economic crisis. Good discussion and food is promised.

Detailed School programmes and topics by region to follow.

British Columbia: July 31 to Aug. 3 – Sechelt, Camp at Farm by Pacific ocean

“I am a survivor of the Nakba (the Palestinian Catastrophe). My parents were forced out of Jaffa, Palestine in 1948 by Zionist terrorist gangs while my mother was still pregnant with me. … I was shocked, hurt and outraged by your action of removing an exam question relating to the dispossession of my people.

Read the full letter: http://tinyurl.com/mb3xtx

July 02, 2009

The month of June was, as usual, a busy month for the anti-imperialist young people of the world.

In Europe the month started with the elections for the European Parliament. Despite the need to analyze the results in each country, the election of several openly fascist European Parliament members is a sign that the [landscape] of the international capitalist crisis won't bring, just automatically, the victory of the people and, in fact, it has the potential to bring even worst and strong[er] attacks to the rights of the people.

Nevertheless, some progressive forces have achieved important results that reinforce our hope and our struggle for a future of peace and sovereignty.

[Confirming] the anti-democratic character of the European Union, soon after the elections, the European Council started the manoeuvres to force the Irish people to repeat the referendum of the already rejected European Reform Treaty.

In Iran the situation also grew tense after the last elections, in which the opposition and the Government forces clashed.WFDY believes that the current Government of Iran is disrespectful towards the social and human basic rights, as the persecution to our member organization Tudeh Party Youth shows. However we do not share the idea that it is with tactical manoeuvres [such] as the ones now being promoted by the imperialist forces, that Iran will achieve the change that it needs and deserves.

Furthermore, this was a month in which USA reinforced the interferences on the possibility for the reunification of the Korean peninsula challenging once again DPRK and in a hypocritical way demanding the nuclear disarmament of the country, whereas USA is the country that has alone done more than 90% of the nuclear tests and the only one that used the nuclear weapon.

For the next month the struggle will continue and we can hardly to wait to meet the hundreds of youngsters that with WFDY will celebrate the 50 years of the Cuban Revolution and denounce the 60 years of imperialist crimes of NATO, showing…

SEE A REVOLUTION IN MOTION

Past YCL Statements

Join the struggle!

The Young Communist League of Canada is a marxist-leninist organization of youth who struggle for socialism and work to build a strong youth and student movement.

We are a multi-ethnic organization of young workers, employed and unemployed, young women and men. We work in movements for peace and democracy and against racism, sexism homophobia, national oppression and destruction of our environment.

We work in our unions and workplaces for better wages, and in our high schools for democratic and equal education, our colleges, universities and trade schools for accesibility. We bring forth these viewpoints through our League's agitational magazine, Rebel Youth.

We work together for a Canada without exploitation where the workers hold all political, social and economic power. We recognize that since youth are the future, we must play a vital role in fighting for socialism.